Nome Sweet Nome

I managed to make it to Anchorage without any weird people stopping to talk to me on the plane or annoy me with useless questions that have simple answers. I think that my boys – the four guys that I’m traveling with: Brandon, my Executive Producer; Greg, my Producer; Jon, my audio guy; and Beau, my cameraman – have some sort of crazy gene as well because they get people to talk to them, but they’re usually in the form of long legged blonds. Hum…

Anyhow, the five of us made it to Anchorage, where we spent 4 days driving around the city and basically getting used to each other and our filming/working styles. We’d worked together in Seattle for four days shooting the Seattle portion of the Klondike Gold Rush, but it was 3 weeks ago, so this was a reunion start of sorts.

I feel that I should start at the beginning and explain what I’m doing spending 3 months in Alaska. I managed to secure a Production Coordinator position on a TV documentary show about Gold Prospecting in Nome, Alaska. The Gold Prospectors Association of America owns a Gold Mining camp 12 miles west of Nome, Alaska, on the beach. Every year they have people pay to come out to a ram shack town complete with mess hall, outhouses, wooden huts, and a community hall; it looks like a scene from a John Wayne Western, to prospect gold.

“Alaskan”, the name of my show, is following the prospectors around to see if they can dredge up some golden “color” as the locals call it. In between filming people who I consider a little nuts, coming out to the freezing cold to dig in the sand as a vacation, we’re going to travel along the Klondike Gold Rush Route from Skagway to Dawson City, Alaska.

In 1898 the S.S. Portland docked in Seattle with over $150,000 in gold (that was a lot at that time). Word spread that Dawson City was the place to be and so everyone, from the janitors to the police officers, abandoned their jobs and their families to seek their riches. There were 3 routes to take to Dawson City: Steamer, Train, and walking/boating. Most people either made it halfway and turned around because of the difficulty with the routes or they’d run out of supplies, or they perished along the way. About 15% of the people that started in Seattle managed to make it all the way to Dawson City.

My show plans to follow along all the routes (except the Steamer route because that no longer exist) that the pioneers took and explain the historical aspects of the places that we stop in relation to the Klondike Gold Rush. I had the pleasure of organizing this portion of the trip and I’m excited because we get to take a plane ride over the Chilkoot pass, 33 miles of wilderness that the pioneers had to hike, before reaching Bennett Lake. At the Lake, the pioneers had to build boats by cutting down the trees along the lake and then sail 500 miles, through tough rapids, to Dawson City. I also planned a dog sled ride, a train trip through White Pass, and numerous museum visits. It should be a great trip.

Back to present. I’m currently in Nome proper. We drove in today on a giant truck with the wheels being 4 feet tall, you know the kind that all the annoying idiots have to drive over those LA speed bumps? It was slow going because the truck tried to slide into the bay a few times, but we made it safe and sound. Most of the time I get to drive around on my very own ATV, but it’s nice to give my muscles a rest once in a while. I swear that my thumb will be super strong by the end of this trip because I use it to control the throttle.

So far I’m kind of a terrible ATV driver, being one of the slowest and most timid in the group. Yesterday I managed to practically tip the ATV sideways, throwing me off it, which caused the ATV to continue on, running over my legs (thankfully at a slow speed) and into the Bay. Luckily I was ok, and the ATV didn’t float away, but I got a great bath, having been deprived for three days, by trying to pull it out of the water before it floated out to sea. My shoes are still drying in the cabin I living in.

Speaking of the cabin, I’m staying in an A-frame house that has one bedroom downstairs (mine), a kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms upstairs (the boys). There’s a bathroom downstairs, but the water pump isn’t up and running yet, so it’s into the bushes for now. Not too bad for the boys, but Nome doesn’t have any trees – open tundra, and it’s daylight 24 hours. I’ve become very creative at peeing. The water should be up in the next day or two, good for peeing, but better for a much wanted shower and just the ability to brush my teeth without using bottled water.

Anyhow, we’re in town to film to barge coming in that has all the supplies for the camp that we shipped from Seattle. It’s taken 3 weeks to come to Nome, but we lucked out, and managed to be in town when the thing actually came in. The attitude for the barge in Nome is, “oh, it might come in Friday, but most likely Sunday. Not sure.” It was suppose to come in Sunday at 10am, but I we drove in today, Saturday, in anticipation for the Sunday arrival, noting as we got to town, the barge on the horizon. It ended up hitting dock at 7pm this evening. I guess everyone was wrong on when it would come in, but we got our shot and everyone is happy.

The boys plan to stay in town and shoot some more stuff tomorrow, but since the town is booked up for hotel rooms due to some random conference, leaving only 2 single beds available for this evening, I get to head back to camp on ATV tonight. Sucks because sleeping in a normal bed with running water sounded enticing, but I guess next time.

Bye for now.